I have a large supply of electrical shielding lead, it is very soft, do you guys see any reason why a 45 or 50 cal slug at 1400fps with this lead would be a problem? The cartridges specifically are the 50-70 and 43 Mauser, I know some people say 20:1 but I do not know where I could get tin to mix in and I want the bullets to open up when they hit something.
Soft lead for big old antiques?
- Thread starter Fox
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vagrantviking
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- High River, Alberta
1400fps might be possible with pure lead but there are many contributing factors like bore fit and condition etc. 20-1 is a tried and true solution for these guns that goes back at least 150 years. The tin also makes it easier to get nice fill out when casting.
Tin can be bought from Western Metals and other places. The best is to watch junk stores and garage sales for solder and pewter. Yomomma was selling some pewter at one point.
Tin can be bought from Western Metals and other places. The best is to watch junk stores and garage sales for solder and pewter. Yomomma was selling some pewter at one point.
Ok, so that is not going to hurt the expansion much at all as the hardness with just tin is not going to spike. I assume you do the measurement based on weight, a perfect way would be to use a hot plate and pot to mix and cast ingots for later?
I also have a bunch of 6% antimony lead, hard stuff.
Based on this calculator https://www.weatherby.dk/bhn.htm if I mix 1lb of my dead soft stuff with 0.25lb of the super hard stuff I should get a hardness of around 10, which is similar to 20/1, but would the antimony in there matter?
Based on this calculator https://www.weatherby.dk/bhn.htm if I mix 1lb of my dead soft stuff with 0.25lb of the super hard stuff I should get a hardness of around 10, which is similar to 20/1, but would the antimony in there matter?
- Location
- Western Manitoba
I do not have much experience at trying what you propose - so 20-1 lead-tin is about 5% tin. You say you have 6% antinomy, but do not mention any tin content. What you propose might work, but your results are as likely to be influenced by what kind of lube that you use, the velocity of the load, and the fit of that bullet to the free-bore and the groove of that barrel. Let us know how it works for you? I do not know specifically about the 50-70 or the 43 Mauser, but many "old days" rounds were paper patched, often with black powder.
Dragon lube is what I got for these, the 50-70 is an 1860s rifle so going to stick with holy black with it and was debating the same with the 71/84 mauser sporter.
Ok, so going to track down some pewter or solder to mix in and make an alloy.
I have a bunch of 0.515 450gr bullets i cast up already, I will give them a try and see how badly they lead.
Another thought I had for the 50-70 was powder coating, I have all the stuff for it but have not tried it myself. Powder coating may help with the slight pitting in the 50-70 bore but also feels very wrong.
If you are using Black Powder, then, use a BP lube such as SPG. Do not use a smokeless powder lube! I use Paul Mathews' lube made from his recipe. He calls it "Premium Lube" I know it's sacrilegious to say so but, for me, it works better than SPG.
As far as powder coating goes, I powder coat everything I shoot!....and lube as well. I do this because I shoot both BP & smokeless in the same rifles and I don't want to stock bullets for each powder!
YMMV!
vagrantviking
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- High River, Alberta
This is good advice and Dragonlube makes bp lube that works well if you're not interested in making your own.
Hardening the alloy withe a little antimony is something I've heard about but I don't know how it would affect the behavior of the material. My instinct is that antimony is more brittle that tin but alloys don't necessarily work that way and it's a small amount....
I think paper patching would address all your concerns about keeping soft lead while managing leading and expansion but then you're looking for new molds and have a new skill set to figure out.
Ya, I am learning casting at the moment and have only shot bullets I have cast in sabots in my 50 cal ML so far, those 310gr with soft lead really group well believe it or not.
The thing now is that I have a few antiques and many that shoot weird diameters so cast has to be the way to go.
To be honest this lead has to have some tin in it, it was made into sheets and some was made in to fishing weights (catfish weights). The molds seem to fill out nice with good heat so there has to be some tin in it.
I guess I really need to try them and see how they group and how bad the leading is. That being said, lots of articles say that 20:1 is a great hunting alloy for large bullets.
I am also suppose to be getting wheel weights from the shop at some point, I will keep that in a different spot and the 6% antimony stuff sounds like glass when you drop them on a hard surface after water quenching, that should work well in rifles with gas checks if I don't plan to hunt with them.
fingers284
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Alberta Cowboy Ranges
vagrantviking
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- High River, Alberta
Nothing better than to give it a whirl and see what works.
Every gun is it's own beast and particularly so with the grand old smoke poles you're playing with.
I find fiber over powder wads to be helpful too if that's something you haven't considered yet.
Every gun is it's own beast and particularly so with the grand old smoke poles you're playing with.
I find fiber over powder wads to be helpful too if that's something you haven't considered yet.
I made a punch from an empty 338 Lapua case to punch out card wads, the plan was 3 wads on top of the compressed powder then the bullet seated on top of that, keep the lube from getting on the powder.
I do have that crazy hard stuff so I can just use weight to make an alloy to harden it, just trying to figure out what to do to make a usable bullet.
I emailed The Bullet Barn and they are back in business, they have bullets but they cast to 22 BHN, which is way too hard for this application.
